After Itarilda and Greenclaw both dinged 44 and trained in Darnassus, and returned to Feralas for a little more adventure, Itarilda, true to her bear form, went into hibernation. Greenclaw took a cat nap there at the inn.

Then the redshirt guy came out to play. Blackhoof mana’d up and hit Alterac Valley. Screaming. You just know your side sucks goblin balls when three Alliance guys camp your cave exit, and the only place the few who die are spawning and have to leave, since Horde controls NOTHING else on the entire map. Nothing. We killed Balinda and get beaten back to the Cave. Alliance literally dominate the entire map. Alliance Wins. 500 honor for the Alliance (5-freakin’ hundred) vs. 100 for the Horde.

But Blizzard is okay with handing out Epics to AFKers, so why put any effort into it? Free epics and you don’t have to do anything more than jump every now and then and respond to GM whispers. Just cut to the chase Blizzard. Just send every Horde player in the Rampage Battlegroup a full set of level 70 PvP armor and weapons in the in-game mail. Just do it. You’re doing it slowly and it’s killing me. Put the damn things into the mail and be done with it. You won’t fix the problem, so just reward it already. That would really cut down on the AFKers, no? They’re only there to leach gear. Give it to them. Let the rest of us get back to having fun battles again.

I get out, try to do things. I was there for the Balinda kill, I was there trying to defend the Stonehearth Graveyard capture, I was there trying to hold onto Iceblood Graveyard. And later I got my tauren butt handed to me over and over by the same three guys outside of our cave. Resto Shaman is utterly worthless in a Battleground. But Enhancement is even moreso. Elemental? Perhaps. Well Resto is worthless when it comes to killing other folks. I am, however, in the top 5 in healing in every BG I’m in. And, as opposed to some healers, I’ll actually get some damage in, and some Killing Blows as well. But my little personal victories just pale when compated with the overall losses we suffer.

But, hell, what does it feel like to be on the Alliance side?

Arcarius logs on. Level 66. Now there’s a bit of a wait to get into Alterac Valley for the Alliance. So I queue up for Arathi Basin as well. AB pops. We ride out. Win. Three to two, but only after holding on to four for the longest. Queue up for AB again. Pop. We ride out. Stables grabbed. I follow somebody to the lumber mill. I see a swarm of humanoids riding up from the other side. Uh oh. I inform the raid. Hopefully they’ll take something else. Horde’s got 4 resources and are steamrolling us. It’s not a pre-made. Just a pug. Fair turnaround. AV pops. I exit and take the AV battle.

I ride like the wind. We blow past Stonehearth, no Horde in sight. Snowfall. We kill whatshisname in Iceblood Tower. We kill the two outside. We kill the guy in Tower Point. By the time I arrive at Frostwolf Graveyard that’s taken. I’ve seen no Horde anywhere. We ride into Frostwolf Keep. Somebody pulls guards and I grab the Relief Hut. It’s peaceful and we pull the Warlords one by one.

They call “all in” and we have Drek and his two wolves. He’s dead. My stats are 0 deaths, 0 killing blows, 2 honor kills, and 400 something honor. Horde have 100 something. You’d have to look at damage done to tell if I’d done something or not.

But ain’t that the funniest thing? I’m in AV, level 66, and I see a win without seeing any Horde. What’s up with that? Is that across the battlegroups or just Rampage?